Old Firm

[scotjo 19]

Think we must keep Murty for this, he aint much, but he has been caretaker for a month and he knows the players, they know him, let Pedro come in after, give him a few weeks and be ready for the Ibrox Old Firm game, better to have someone we are familiar with and more chance of maybe getting something from the game.

Pedro can watch from the stands.

[MacK1950 2,399]

It's a "catch22" we Know what Murty can do but casting doubt into the manky mob could also be a weapon.

[scotjo 19]

It's a "catch22" we Know what Murty can do but casting doubt into the manky mob could also be a weapon.

 

True, that is a good point.

[boabie 230]

I know what you mean scot , and I don't want to seem to be pendantic - but in my eyes there is no "old firm". It was a derogatory term when it was first coined. Over the years folk regarded it meant some sort of partnership.

I want nothing to do with that lot and would prefer we didn't use that title.

As to your point though. As Mac says , it's a catch 22 and I wouldn't like to hazard a guess how things would work out either way.

[Scott7 6,173]

Agree about the "old firm" nonsense.

 

Who'd want them as partners? Lennon's Leith Hibs maybe. Strange transformation there. Up to fifty years ago celtic were Hibs' worst enemies.

[Darthter 542]

If the new Manager is available to start immediately, then why not??

 

Murty ain't going anywhere, so will be available to look after & prepare the team in conjunction with the new guy - almost like a 2 week hand over period.

[cooponthewing 1,139]

I know what you mean scot , and I don't want to seem to be pendantic - but in my eyes there is no "old firm". It was a derogatory term when it was first coined. Over the years folk regarded it meant some sort of partnership.

I want nothing to do with that lot and would prefer we didn't use that title.

As to your point though. As Mac says , it's a catch 22 and I wouldn't like to hazard a guess how things would work out either way.

 

Totally agree Boabie. Genuinely want nothing to with that lot. On another sour note and an example of the dregs gay follow that lot, my niece received some unwelcome comments in McDonald's.

 

We were sat in the Pollockshaws road branch before game on Wednesday. I had nipped to toilet before we left. When we were on our way outside she told me she had seen one of the dads speak to two of his young boys(one wearing mhank replica gear) who it would appear told them to go over and wind her up while I was at toilet.

 

If thats waens in a playground fair enough, and it a laugh, but why would your parents tell you to have a dig at an eight year old in McDonald's ffs??

An indication of what we are dealing with.

[Uilleam 5,966]

Agree about the "old firm" nonsense.

 

Who'd want them as partners? Lennon's Leith Hibs maybe. Strange transformation there. Up to fifty years ago celtic were Hibs' worst enemies.

 

Changed days. Strange days, with what seems like every team in Scotland (bar one!) in rasellik's back pocket. I've tried to fathom the unnatural hold that fhilthfootballclub has over its 'competitors', and can conclude only that, failing blackmail, or an unholy, and decisive, influence of the irish kafflick ummah in every boardroom, it was able to persuade them that once Rangers was dead, it would , within a few uncompetitive seasons, (be able to) move to the richer pastures of the English Leagues, leaving them happily with their own League to play with.

[der Berliner 3,815]

BTW, quite a few managers move about with a certain following, like assistants, scouts et al. Any idea whether that would be the case with the Portuguese chap, should he come? While it is all interesting to read about a DoF, I would assume there will still be an assistant manager. So even if we get someone, Murty might well stay on for a few weeks as assistant?

[Uilleam 5,966]

Changed days. Strange days, with what seems like every team in Scotland (bar one!) in rasellik's back pocket. I've tried to fathom the unnatural hold that fhilthfootballclub has over its 'competitors', and can conclude only that, failing blackmail, or an unholy, and decisive, influence of the irish kafflick ummah in every boardroom, it was able to persuade them that once Rangers was dead, it would , within a few uncompetitive seasons, (be able to) move to the richer pastures of the English Leagues, leaving them happily with their own League to play with.

 

The campaign has started.....

 

From today's Times

A poor article, but don't shoot the messenger.

 

Scotland: the worst title race in Europe since 1932

● Celtic have dropped only two points all season ● Rodgers’ team could be most one-sided title winners since Hungary’s Ferencvaros 85 years ago ● Attendances have collapsed across the league

 

James Gheerbrant

March 3 2017, 12:01am,

The Times

 

On Sunday, September 18, Inverness Caledonian Thistle drew 2-2 with Celtic at Tulloch Caledonian Stadium. If you were there, hang on to your ticket stub. It might be a museum artefact one day.

 

That draw remains the sole blot on Celtic’s otherwise immaculate copybook this season. Brendan Rodgers’s side have won 26 of their 27 league games, including their past 22. Their lead over second-placed Aberdeen is 27 points — more than the top-of-the- table gaps in England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Belgium combined. They have not lost a league game since May 11 last year, when the UK was yet to decide on Brexit, Bernie Sanders was in the US presidential race, and Muhammad Ali was alive. They are playing the Scottish Premiership like a video game with the wrong difficulty setting on.

 

It is no exaggeration to say that it is almost unprecedented for a leading domestic league to become such a cakewalk. As Simon Gleave, head of analysis at Gracenote Sports, points out, Celtic are only four points short of the record winning margin achieved at the end of any national top-flight season, the 31-point gap attained by Paris Saint-Germain in 2015-16 and Egyptian side Al Ahly in 2004-05 — with 11 games left to play. Only four teams have ever bettered their league rivals by as much as a point per game. To find a team that exceed Celtic’s points-per-game ratio of 2.93, you have to go back to the 1931-32 Hungarian league season, when Ferencvaros won all 22 of their games.

 

Standings — Scottish Premiership

Pos. P W D L GD Pts

1

Celtic

Celtic 27 26 1 0 57 79

2

Aberdeen

Aberdeen 27 16 4 7 26 52

3

Rangers

Rangers 27 13 7 7 5 46

4

Heart of Midlothian

Heart of Midlothian 27 10 8 9 11 38

 

I have come to Scotland to find out what happens to the soul of a country’s national game when its main competition becomes a non-competition.

 

“It’s as uncompetitive a season as I’ve ever seen,” the Scottish football broadcaster Archie Macpherson, who has covered Scottish football since 1962, tells me.

 

“I worked through the two periods of nine [titles] in a row, for both Rangers and Celtic, but the gap was never as wide as this. It is preposterous. The lack of competition is bringing monotony into the game, and football abhors monotony as nature abhors a vacuum.”

 

His concerns are echoed by Gordon Smith, the former Scottish Football Association chief executive and Rangers striker, whose old club are spending their first season in the top flight since 2011-12 after being liquidated at the end of that season and working their way back up from the bottom of the football pyramid.

 

“Celtic are a very good team, they’ve got good players, they play good football, but that’s the only thing that takes away from this worry that it’s rubbish,” he says.

 

“We have a two-horse race in Scotland most of the time — and at the moment, there’s only one horse. I don’t think there’s any doubt about it: because it is a procession, there is a loss of interest.”

 

That loss of interest is evident as I journey to Hamilton Academical’s New Douglas Park for a crucial match against Celtic’s supposed challengers-in-chief, Aberdeen. Hamilton’s hard-fought 1-0 win propels them three places off the bottom of the table to tenth, but there are only 2,006 fans in the 5,500-seater stadium to see it. The East Stand is populated by two spectators.

 

Hamilton’s average home attendance has sunk from 3,024 last season to just 2,584 this season, and although some clubs have seen a modest increase, the overall trend of disappointing gates is the same. At Aberdeen’s 21,000-seater Pittodrie Stadium, the average crowd has shrunk from 13,094 to 12,154. Motherwell’s Fir Park, which seats 13,677, has seen the average attendance drop from 4,912 to 4,558.

 

Celtic’s attendances, swelled by the return of old foes Rangers, remain resolutely buoyant, but even their fans are beginning to switch off.

 

Richard Wilson, a Scottish football viewing figures expert, points to a run of four Celtic league games in October and November that drew an audience of fewer than 100,000 combined as the “smoking gun” indicating the depressing effect of Celtic’s supremacy.

 

“Although SPFL viewing figures are strong overall, that’s far lower than you’d expect,” he explains. “Generally, you’d be looking at 150,000 to 190,000 viewers for those sorts of games. The only explanation for that is their dominance.”

 

 

Jimmy, the Celtic-supporting cabbie who takes me to Glasgow’s Queen Street station and can reel off the name of Celtic players he’s “run around”, laments the decline of the traditional rivalry with Rangers.

 

“It’s not as enjoyable as it was when we had a real close rivalry,” he says. “When they had a real good team and we went down there and gave them a shoeing, it used to be great. Now we’re going there expecting to win, knowing that we’re going to win, because Rangers are hopeless, they’re pish.”

 

Of course, the diminution of competition reflects Scottish football’s dwindling quality base. When the Lisbon Lions of Tommy Gemmell, who died yesterday aged 73 after a long illness, won the European Cup in 1967, Rangers also reached the Cup Winners’ Cup final and Dundee United beat Barcelona 4-1 in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. Now those clubs are ranked 267th and 269th respectively in Uefa’s rankings. The Scottish national team, once a genuine world power, have not reached a leading tournament since 1998. The problem with the hideously lop-sided Scottish Premiership is that it does not just demonstrate those failings; it perpetuates them.

 

“It’s hugely damaging for Scottish football,” Macpherson says. “You want to encourage teams to compete, but scrabbling for second place, when such a wide gulf exists, can only be injurious to clubs trying to promote talent.”

 

We have a two-horse race in Scotland most of the time — and at the moment, there’s only one horse

Gordon Smith, Former SFA chief executive

Smith agrees. “When Aberdeen were competing for the league title, or Dundee United, they were providing quite a few players to the national team. Because these teams aren’t competing as well, we’re not producing as many players for Scotland either, and Scotland as a team will suffer greatly.”

 

Given all this, you might think that the case for reform would be irresistible. But it isn’t that simple. There is little appetite for change — certainly not at Celtic, nor, more surprisingly, further down the table.

 

Willie Miller captained Aberdeen, the last club to break the Old Firm hegemony, to three league titles in the 1980s, and later served as the club’s manager and director, but even he is not inclined to bang the drum for a return to the good old days.

 

“Celtic being so far ahead has not really affected clubs like Aberdeen and Hearts,” he says. “When you look at Aberdeen, you’d maybe hanker back to the Eighties, but you don’t have that now — it’s not in the fans’ psyche that you can challenge Celtic. I think Aberdeen and Hearts are comfortable playing second fiddle.”

 

Nor is the SPFL itself concerned. “Winning 22 consecutive leagues games is a very rare achievement in any league but is first and foremost worthy of congratulation,” the chief executive Neil Doncaster says.

 

“As other clubs strive to meet the high standards set by Celtic we would hope that in the long run that would benefit the standards of the league and the wider game.”

 

 

Rodgers’s side play good football but are helped by a distinct lack of competition

 

Smith believes that the SFA is powerless to arrest the erosion of domestic competition, and with every title win offering Celtic access to the highly lucrative Champions League, the circularity of the phenomenon is easy to see.

 

For now, Celtic just keep on winning. My journey ends at Inverness Caledonian Thistle, where, in a repeat of the fixture that dealt their one setback, Celtic cruise to a 4-0 win. The hosts implode after 12 seconds of the second half when goalkeeper Owain Fon Williams slices a clearance straight to Moussa Dembélé. “We were beaten before we stepped on the pitch,” Richie Foran, the Inverness manager, admits.

 

“I’m not really worried [about a lack of competition],” Rodgers says. “Some people will say you need more competition to do better in Europe, but I don’t necessarily agree. We work hard to a top level anyway. All you can do is always beat the opponent in front of you.”

 

No mention of Rangers, other than pejoratively, which is the default position, of course, nor of Rangers' attendances.

The campaign has started........

Edited March 3, 2017 by Uilleam